Damian takes in the view as Father and he plummet towards the ground.

If he helps Father when they come into contact with the League, it's treason. Death has always been the penalty for betraying the League, and Damian would be risking that. The only exception, the only thing Damian can think of that proves that wrong, is the fact that Pennyworth said Mother had saved Father from Grandfather. If she had, maybe he can get away with it.

And if he doesn't help Father, he's betraying his blood. He doesn't deserve to be called his parents' son.

In addition to all that, there's the fact that Father doesn't want him to kill anyone. Damian had said he wouldn't, but he's also smart enough to know that once he starts holding back on killing or maiming blows, it will be harder to manage lots of combatants – he's not as strong as an adult, he can't reliably knock someone out by punching them in the head. He might have to hit them multiple times, leaving himself ample time to be surrounded.

Compassion for the enemy or safety for me? It shouldn't even be a debate, but thanks to Father's quirks, it is. He has about two minutes to decide.

As they fall, Damian can tell they already won't make it. A bullet slices through the parachute cord and makes their descent less controlled than his was when he was seven. And there are heavily armed assassins waiting for them.

Damian figures he's got one chance to save them.

Father seems to be preparing to protect him, wrapping his arms around him, Damian starts to unbuckle his harness so he can roll and kill some of his momentum and –

Wham!

They land, and some crack jolts through Father as Damian is thrown clear. Saved, by the fact that Father was cushioning him. And more importantly – Father is injured, for protecting him.

Would you give up your strength for his weakness?

Damian doesn't even know where his mother's voice is coming from, but it's clear that's exactly what Father did.

He grabs a knife from his belt and his sword from his sheath. Time to repay the favor.

One of the shadows approaches him, the others all focused on Father. They must have not seen his face yet, or they'd know they needed way more than one assassin to subdue him.

Damian grins. Finally, all of the confusion of the last couple hours is gone. He doesn't have to wonder or worry about what people want, about expectations that seem to change moment to moment. He can just do what he was born to do.

He throws two knives at the assassin and the assassin stumbles away. He runs up at them and lands on their back hard, forcing the knives in their torso in deeper still.

The other four start to turn on him. Two of them are armed with swords, and two with guns.

Good.

The guns first, Damian thinks, as he takes in an inventory of the assassins after him. He doesn't wait for them to get their aim – a well placed knife to the hand of one makes them drop their gun, and Damian rushes at the other, drops to the ground as they get a shot off that whizzes straight over his head, rolls forward and sweeps their knees with his leg and slices his sword straight at their neck –

It isn't until the spray of blood hits his face that Damian realizes he's killed them.

No, that's not right. It isn't until the spray of blood hits his face that Damian realizes he should have cared that he killed them. He knew it was lethal, he knew they'd die, but that's how you train: end the fight as quickly as possible. No mercy for your enemies.

Maybe Father was right to be afraid of him.

He hates the thought and redirects his hate onto the assassins attacking him. He goes after the one with the gun he disarmed first, in case he re-grabs his weapon. The other two – the ones with swords – are following him, not quite able to catch up, and Damian nimbly steps behind the disarmed one to force them to be a shield against their comrades. The assassin attempts to turn around and grapple him – they could easily use their superior strength to get Damian out of his position of cover if Damian allowed them to.

Damian chooses not to allow them to. He kicks the back of one of the assassin's knees and punches their kidney, before taking out a knife and stabbing there again, just to make sure they're feeling it. The assassin backs up and wildly elbows at him, and their elbow catches Damian hard enough to send him sprawling backwards. Damian's mouth hits the metal railing of the platform and he can taste blood.

There are some grunts as Father tries to free himself, and Damian charges the two remaining assassins who haven't been incapacitated. One of them swings their sword at his neck and Damian ducks down underneath their blow, rolls forward, and stands up while sticking his sword through their gut. He shoves it in straight to the handle and turns on the final combatant.

The final assassin starts backing away from him, and Damian's too angry to care whether it's because they're scared of what he did to their colleagues or they recognize him or some other reason. He charges because they're backing away. For a moment, they don't look like an assassin who serves his family. They look like Father, asking him why. They look like Tim, begging for help. They look like the first man he killed as he struggled to stand.

Mother's voice again: No weakness. No hesitation. No mercy for fools.

Damian yells, leaping at them without any skill whatsoever, and they hesitate, sword half-way up, stuck between surrender and attack. Their loss.

Damian lands on their chest, the two of them fall to the ground – the assassin on their back and Damian on their chest. Damian starts pummeling their face, yelling all the while. Blood from their nose and mouth spray up and hit his face as he's punching.

"... Lord…" the assassin chokes out.

Thwump! Thwump! Thwump!

The breaking of teeth under his hands.

"... Lord…" the assassin chokes out again.

All of a sudden, Damian snaps back to reality. He's on a platform with five assassins – one dead, four possibly dying. Father's freed his hand enough from the red foam that he can now start chopping it away with a batarang and Damian –

Damian is covered in blood. His gloves are soaked in it, a bit of someone's broken tooth is sticking through them and into his knuckle. He stands up hastily.

"Damian," Father says.

This was a mistake. You. Letting you have full run of the place.

Damian exhales a harsh, ragged breath.

"Damian, I gave you an order!" Father says. "Why did you do it?"

What makes you think I'll let you stay here long enough to try again?

Damian looks around the platform, searching for the inevitable reinforcements – assuming the assassins had had enough time to request any. But he doesn't think they did, and Father's not in danger, and now he can –

Now he can –

Damian grabs his sword from the assassin's guts and runs through the door that leads to the lower levels of the platform.

He braces the door with his sword, sticking it through the handle. Getting rid of his weapon was stupid, but he doesn't want Father following him. He doesn't know if he wants to see him ever again yet the only thing he wants is for him to tell him he did well.

Damian slams his head against the wall, angrily. He's rewarded for his foolishness with a sharp pain and spinning feeling. For a moment, he looks between the door he barred and the interior of the building, where there are surely more assassins in wait. More League of Shadows members, waiting for him to command them. If he chooses to do so.

It doesn't matter what he chooses, though. Father was intending on returning him to the League anyway – he said as much. The only path open for him is the one Grandfather and Mother have laid before him since birth.

There's movement in the hall. Two assassins on security detail, both of them look him up and down when they see him.

"Lord?" one of them asks. "Why are you dressed like that?"

Damian looks down at the Robin suit Father gave him in embarrassment. "Where's my mother?" he asks.

The assassins look between each other.

"Not here," one of them says. "But the White Ghost wants to see you. He's been expecting you."

Damian clicks his tongue against his teeth. He nods, indicating they should lead the way. As they do, his head stops spinning from the door and he finishes returning to reality. Away from the battle and his father, he can finally regain his senses.

They escort Damian to a command center filled with security consoles – the same command center Mother had taken him to and asked him use the comms to call off backup a little over two days ago, right before their fight. It feels like a lifetime ago.

Inside the room is a tall, lean man with white hair and pale skin, wearing white clothing and green goggles that obscure his eyes. The White Ghost, known only to family as Dusan Al Ghul – Damian's uncle Ra's has always rejected for being unworthy.

"Damian," Dusan says, gesturing at a chair. "Take a seat."

Damian looks skeptically between Dusan and the chair. If Mother and Dusan were arguing over who should lead the League, he's aware of the fact that this could be a hostile takeover attempt on Dusan's part – if he's intending on using Damian as a hostage against his mother.

Damian looks at the assassins who brought him here. "Leave us, fools."

They don't leave on his command. They wait for Dusan, who nods. Only then do they leave.

Damian frowns. He doesn't sit down.

"I'm pleased to see you alive and well," Dusan says. "It seems rumors of your injury were greatly exaggerated."

Damian looks down at his hand, the cut on it from the assassin's tooth, which is still embedded in it. That's the only injury he can think he has at the moment, unless you count the faint taste of blood in his mouth from and a loose tooth or two from the railing collision. But none of those count as injuries in the League, and no one's had any time to hear about any of them yet, anyway.

"What injury?" he asks skeptically.

Dusan smiles slightly. "Your mother said you were injured in that inane fight you do every year. You'd be spending the next couple weeks recovering."

Damian's mouth drops open in offense.

How dare she! How dare she lie! But more importantly – how dare she make him look weak by telling this lie to the rest of the League!

"I take it that isn't exactly how things happened," Dusan continues.

"I won that fight!"

"Good," Dusan says. "You need to be strong for what's coming."

Damian sighs, suddenly deflated. He's heard that all his life. He thought things would be different after the Year of Blood and after he met his father. He thought it'd be like winning and he'd get to rest.

No rest for the wicked, he thinks, even though he's never thought of himself as wicked before – just willing to do whatever's necessary, like Mother and Grandfather are. "What is coming?" he asks eventually.

Dusan smiles.

"Tell me, boy," Dusan says, and at the use of boy, Damian instinctively reaches for where his sword would be, but it's gone. Barring the door. "Do you care for your Grandfather?"

It's like Dusan can read his mind and see all of the thoughts he's been having these past days – not as if he ever contemplated betraying Grandfather or his cause, but something felt wrong, deeply, in his dream that was about Grandfather yet wasn't at the same time. He protests, both for Dusan's benefit and his own: "Of course I do! My loyalty was never in question!"

"You'd do anything to help him and his cause?"

"You know I would," Damian says, but this time, he can't force himself to respond enthusiastically. In his experience, whenever someone tries to get you to agree to something before telling you what it is, it's something they already know you won't like.

Dusan walks back over to the command center's table, and Damian tries to peak at all of the papers there, but Dusan shoves them into a folder too fast for him to analyze them. All Damian could tell was that they were in a language he didn't recognize.

Dusan looks to Damian. Behind his green goggles, his expression is inscrutable. "You have a very unique opportunity. You should thank me."

Damian presses his lips together and tries to hide his general unease. "What do I have the opportunity to do?"

Dusan smiles, showing his teeth. "Why, to help me bring your Grandfather back from the dead, of course."

Damian exhales. So that's it then. His grandfather was dead. Not missing, not on another mission – just actual, for real dead, for the first time in over 500 years.

Father would disapprove terribly if Damian helped Dusan, of course. He and Grandfather have been bitter enemies for years, before Damian had even been allowed to hear Batman in more than whispered conversations between Shadows, before Damian had ever known who his father was.

But Father disapproves of everything he does. Moreover, he seems to disapprove of Damian himself, who he is as a person. He wants him to be soft and childlike and meek and not to kill and one-thousand other things Damian doesn't think he's ever been or could ever be.

Mother would approve, he thinks. After all, the man is her father. He raised her from birth. And she's told Damian a thousand times that you can never get rid of your family.

Grandfather –

Grandfather would want to be alive. Obviously. He spent five-hundred years cheating death.

And, Damian thinks, Grandfather would never act like Father did. Grandfather would never try to soften him or act like he's a child or think he's too dangerous or disallowed in his house for killing a rival. Every characteristic he has that Father disapproves of, Grandfather approved of, encouraged, all his life. And what was that he always made him say? I am yours. Doesn't he owe it to him to bring him back?

"I'll help," Damian says finally, softly. His voice feels heavy and hoarse in his throat, but he doesn't know why. "I'll help you bring Grandfather back. I'd be honored to."

"Of course you will," Dusan says.

The entire platform shakes. The room seems to drop five feet at once, and Damian falls to the floor. Dusan scrambles for his folder of whatever, and Damian gets to his feet.

"I thought we called off the backup!" Dusan says.

"Oh, they got suspicious and are coming anyway," Damian says, remembering what Father told him in the cave.

"And you didn't tell me until now?!"

"I guess not," Damian says. Normally, he'd protest harder at Dusan's tone – point out that he hadn't even bothered to ask, had been too busy with his plans for Grandfather to do anything but talk to Damian in a honeyed voice that let him knew he wanted something. But he doesn't. Ever since he agreed to help bring Grandfather back, the world's felt slightly further away. He doesn't know why – he hates it. It should feel better.

Dusan opens the doors to the command room and gestures Damian through. Already, the platform is askew and rapidly filling with water.

"The submarine we took here should still be prepped for emergency evacuation," Dusan says.

Damian nods dully. As they go towards the sub, Damian spares a thought for Father – surely he'd be evacuating by now, if he already got what he wanted. Mother, he thinks. He wanted to know what Mother did to him – he didn't actually want him.

The water is now knee high for Dusan, and thigh-high for Damian. Walking through it is getting harder, especially with how discombobulated Damian's feeling.

Damian attempts to shake it off. He's only felt this out-of-it a couple times before – his first kill, climbing up the mountain with a broken wrist, finding the animal that refused to fight in that labyrinth in Bialya during the Year of Blood. Some type of vestigial weakness he had that he could never admit to nor reveal in front of his family, lest they believe he's as worthless as Dusan is.

The walls branch off to a T. On one side of the hall – the higher side, since the building is horribly sloped now – is his mother and father. On the other side, a whole truckload of Shadows, each of them standing to the side of the hall to where it opens to an emergency door, half buried in water and rapidly sinking. Just above the surface of the water, outside, is the hatch of the submarine.

"Damian?" Father says.

"Damian!" Mother shouts. She rushes up towards him, but Dusan takes a step forward, coming between them. Behind him, the other Shadows all perk up, each preparing to grab their weapons.

If it's a hostile takeover, Damian's having a hard time figuring out how or why. Bringing back Ra's Al Ghul wouldn't put Dusan in charge of the League – things would just be restored to how they used to be.

How they should be, Damian tells himself.

The platform on Father's side drops down, even below him, and water rushes in from that direction as well. The waves from the sudden change knock Damian off his feet, and one of the assassins grabs him by the armpits, pulling him up. "Sir," they say.

"Damian, get back here," Father orders.

Damian thinks it's so weird that Father's barking orders at a time like this. Is he going to order the rapidly rising water back as well?

"Don't stand between me and my son," Mother says to Dusan, and she steps forward, one of her arms raised, like she's seriously intending on punching him.

Dusan steps back and allows her to pass.

"You can let go of me," Damian tells the assassin who steadied him. "I mean – let go of me or I'll cut off your hands!"

Harsh, Damian knows. But he can tell he's losing control. He can tell something's wrong with him. He's got to get the terms of battle back in his favor.

All he needs is… what did Grandfather say? An excellent display of brutality?

Exactly that. In his dream, it had been Father saying it to Drake, but as the memory comes back to him, he knows Grandfather had told it to him. The first sparring demonstration Mother had watched after she'd been allowed in Black Citadel, where Damian nearly took out someone's knee.

The assassin releases him. Mother reaches him, and grabs him up in her arms. Damian lets her. The water's at his chest height. He won't be able to breathe much longer.

Mother's body turns a little, like she's panning to see the room, but Damian can't tell exactly what she's doing, since he's facing away from her now – at Father, who's got a boomerang in his hands. Damian is well aware of how ridiculous he must look – soaking wet, dressed in that silly costume, being held like a child yet still bloody from the fight.

"Talia, get back here!" Father shouts. He starts forward, and Dusan makes movement with his hand and all of the assassins in the hallway start throwing shurikens at Father.

Father is fighting, possibly for his life – as the water rises around him, it hinders his movements. He can't get out of the way of everything thrown at him, and soon, one of the blades is going to cut something vital.

Damian should be helping – either the League or Father, he's not sure who anymore – but he can't force himself to move. He still feels cold. Like he did after his first kill. The vestigial weakness again. But he didn't do anything that could have prompted it. The only thing he did was agree to bring Grandfather back.

Grandfather's voice: You continue to exist at my sufferance.

I am yours I am yours I am yours –

His grandson. His heir. His weapon.

And while all of this chaos happens, inexplicably, Mother starts walking back towards Father.

Damian wants to tell her that he doesn't care about the stupid deal anymore, that she doesn't have to keep letting him see Father because of the terms of their fight. He just wants to go home, though he's not sure where that is.

"Talia," Dusan says with a smile that has no warmth in it at all. "Were you leaving with our hated enemy?"

Three assassins have now lept at Father. He's being pushed into water that's now at his chest height, and he and Mother and all of the other adults start floating in the water.

Damian starts treating water, and the salt stings the injuries in his hands. Those are going to get infected, he thinks, if he doesn't fix them soon.

He starts trying to direct his mother towards the sub. Everyone's fighting. No one seems to be realizing that if they don't get inside soon, they're all going to die.

Mother is looking between Father, the long hallway behind him that's mostly full of water, the assassins in the room, and the hatch to the sub. One of the shurikens slices across Father's face and he grunts in pain.

"I'm sorry," Mother whispers, though Damian can't tell if it's to him or Father or the world in general. Then, she leans back, so she's in backstroke position, and helps Damian along.

"Talia!" Father shouts. "Damian!" His voice comes out pained, harsh, and Damian's wondering if Father is injured enough and the terrain is uneven enough that he's losing the fight.

Talia and Damian barely get out in time – the water level is rising so that the entire room is underwater, Damian barely finished getting enough air in his lungs to make the short swim through the door and to the hatch of the submarine.

Two Shadows help Dusan, Mother, and Damian to the hatch and practically shove him down face first. Damian lands in the bottom of the dingy sub awkwardly and pain shoots up his wrists.

Mother climbs down and kneels in front of Damian. She grabs both his shoulders, as she looks up at him desperately.

"Damian," she says. She smooths back his hair with one hand briefly before grabbing him by the shoulders again. "Damian, are you all right?"

Damian blinks slowly in response.

"Talia," Dusan says, as he attempts to enter the sub.

Mother steps back and lets him. She doesn't stop holding Damian, though – she just grabs him again and wraps him in a hug. Damian barely feels it - he's still cold, still far away.

He thought things would feel better once he got back to the League and the world started making more sense. But they don't.

As they get out of the entry-way, Damian can take in the rest of the sub – still full of assassins. Mother's grip on Damian tightens – in worry? Is it that they're Dusan's men? Their argument was almost certainly for leadership – it must be – otherwise, she'd have no reason to tense at these people who would lay down their lives for them and their family.

"Mother, I have good news," Damian says, if only because for some reason she seems sad right now, freaked out, and he wants to make her happy. He wants her to be happy and get back to normal so he can remember what normal is. "The White Ghost has a plan. The League can save your father. They can resurrect Grandfather."

And besides, he thinks, once Grandfather is resurrected, there won't be any reason for Mother to worry about Dusan and leadership or anything in the League.

Mother squeezes Damian even tighter still, and whatever he said must not have worked, because she buries her face in the crook of his neck where no one else can see it. Her eyelashes brush his cheek and are wet and thick with tears.

"Mother," Damian asks in a whisper, low enough pitched that the rest of the Shadows can't hear it. "Why are you crying?"

But Mother doesn't respond.